Despite intense interest—and extra funding—from lawmakers, the U.S. Air Force will almost certainly not be able to get its first E-7 Wedgetail before 2027, acquisition officials said July 31. But the service can still take actions now to fill out the planned fleet of 26 airframes faster, they noted. “There’s a lot of fixation on how fast we can produce the first one,” Steven Wert, program executive officer for the digital directorate, said at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference. “And there’s limitations to that.”